For the remainder of February, we will discuss ways of being organized for success and  how managing your digital chaos can boost your productivity through better systems can make you more productive.

Mastering Digital Chaos

Organizing Files and Calendar

Today’s episode is about mastering digital chaos and organizing files and calendar for maximum efficiency. I hope that I’ll help you understand how creating an efficient digital organization system and managing your files and schedules can benefit you.

WHY ORGANIZING YOUR FILES AND CALENDAR MATTERS

• Save Time: How you organize your files, and schedule prevents wasting time searching for misplaced files. You might be looking for a rough draft of a work in progress or an outline for a new program. If you don’t know where you saved it or what folder you put it in, you will waste time looking through all those files and programs. Having a system in place and streamlining it will help you be more efficient, improve teamwork and client collaborations, while reducing errors. I share files with my bookkeeper, the person who edits my podcasts, and other team members. Sharing files with all these people could be a big fat mess if you don’t have the right system.

• Boost Collaboration: Having a system helps me collaborate with others. It reduces the time spent searching, improves my efficiency, and aids me in collaborating better with others. Yet another reason why digital collaboration is important is that you can access your files from anywhere. You can access your files from your cell phone or your computer.  You will be able to log on to the internet from somewhere else and access those files. It makes it quick and easy.

• Access Anywhere: You can access your files from your cell phone or your computer.  You will be able to log on to the internet from somewhere else and access those files. It makes it quick and easy.

 HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR FILES

How to organize your files and folder structures that work.

1. Choose a System: When it comes to your folders, it doesn’t matter whether you use OneDrive, Microsoft’s version of their cloud-based system, Google Drive, or something like Dropbox. I recommend backing up frequently to the cloud. We all know computers can fail or die; then you’d be stuck. Recently, I was helping set up a Wednesday night Bible study at my church. We’re showing videos because we are currently without a pastor. I arrived early on Wednesday before church to make sure that the video was going to work. All of a sudden, the computer went black, and everything just shut down. Most of the afternoon, my husband and I thought the computer was lost. We hope our Minister of Music has all the songs backed up, as we use this computer for the PowerPoint slides each Sunday. Without it, I won’t have access to these files on another computer. Just know that it can happen; it happened to me and my computer with tons of client files.
2. Create a Folder Structure: Whatever system you use, you need a structure for that system. Some examples:

• • Project-based: You have a folder for each project you’re working on.
  • Client-Based: Whether it’s for a book, a client, or a coach, you should have a folder for each client. I have a large main client folder and an archived individual client folder. If a client is no longer working with me, they’re in the archived client folder, and there are subfolders beneath that.
  • Date-Based: Say this is a 2025 folder; you will then have a file for each month.

Naming Conventions

What you need to think about is how your brain works. How do you wrap your mind around it and go from there? Then, you can think about some naming conventions for quick retrieval. How are you going to name things? Maybe you will have a name and then the date beside it. I use dots for dates instead of dashes or colons.

If I’m going to date something, I date it 1. 25. 25.  January 25th, 2025 is 1. 25. 25.  So that’s my naming convention for that particular type of file. Then, think about your folder structure. Will it be client-based, project-based, or date-based?

Then, think about where you’re going to store it.  Will it be local storage or cloud storage? I highly recommend backing it up even if you’re doing local storage on your computer or having an external hard drive that you back files up to.

Storage

Then, think about where you’re going to store it. Will it be local storage or cloud storage? I highly recommend backing it up even if you store files locally on your computer or have an external hard drive.  You now have a naming convention and can quickly search for something. Most things like Dropbox and Google Drive allow users to search for those types of files. You can also use Evernote or OneDrive if you want a Microsoft version. If you are Windows-based and want to stay Windows-based. Those are some things to think about.

OPTIMIZING YOUR CALENDAR

Digital Calendars: The next thing to think about is ways of optimizing your calendar. You can use Google or Outlook. Google is cloud-based, so you can utilize it from anywhere. I use Google and really like Google Calendar. I like the feature of having color-coded items. You can create different calendars and have them in different colors, which helps me a lot. You can also time block using Google Calendar to increase your productivity.

Time Blocking: You can block out a specific amount of time to work on a project, maybe your latest work in progress or your own business. Blocking out time in your calendar is a great way to optimize its use and set reminders. Those reminders will go off on your phone, and you can do that for recurring tasks to stay on track.

Setting Reminders: Here is an example.  One of the things that I do every single month. I put into a folder all the things I must share with my bookkeeper. All of those files relate to that month’s bookkeeping.  I have to put in my bank account statement, PayPal statement, Stripe statement, and any other statements so that she can do the books. I have a reminder set for me to do that and I stay organized on top of those things. Those are some examples of the things that I have to do. You can set reminders for all kinds of things. Currently, I am taking medication twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night. Now, I need to increase the medication to three times a day. Because I’m not used to taking it at midday, I started setting a reminder to do that on my calendar. Otherwise, I would forget. This doesn’t have to be a part of your business; it can apply to your daily life.  These are some things that you can do to stay organized.

I hope this shows how organized digital files and an organized calendar can boost your productivity.

START SMALL

Start small, and don’t try to tackle everything at once. If you don’t have any of these things in place, don’t try to tackle all these things at once. You can begin to organize it by putting some naming conventions or folder structures in place. Don’t be afraid to start somewhere and chip away at your organization’s systems slowly so that you can be more productive and have maximum efficiency in your business.

I hope this was helpful and thank you so much for listening. I’ll be back next week to discuss streamlining your workflow and simple systems to save time and reduce overwhelm.